The group that is effectively the bedrock of modern North Carolinian society and culture, Triangle Rad, reached out to me about using my Pao in some sort of modeling/fashion shoot that was looking for 80s and 90s cars. In return, I should get a hi-res shot of my little car looking all swanky! Seemed reasonable to me, and I knew I could use some photos for this post you’re reading right now, so seemed like a win/win. And it happened, this past weekend! Look at that shiny little Pao, modeling up a storm!
I had no idea what to expect; part of me wondered if this would end up like a lowrider magazine cover, and I’d never be able to show my mom, or have to spend the whole next day washing oiled buttock-prints off the windshield? No judgements! But, it turned out not to be like that at all, lots of tasteful 80s and 90s getups, posed with grace. And my car.
I’m also impressed the really tall model was able to sit comfortably in the Pao, since I make very minimal height-demands on the car, so it’s nice to see it pushed a bit.
There were other great cars that showed up: a Suzuki Cappucino, a Plymouth Laser, and a brace of DeLoreans!
I feel like I’ve seen funny old vintage cars in catalogs from like Anthropologie or whatever, so maybe this could be a lucrative side gig for the Pao? Send it out to let people in expensive sweaters lounge all over it, languidly?
Oh, and here’s something fun, and a reminder to be free with your car knowledge, because sometimes it can bring people joy. The owner of the Plymouth Laser wasn’t aware of the car’s hidden headlight secret: that you can get the headlights to shine through those little otherwise unused lenses if you pull the stalk for the flash-to-pass headlight maneuver. I showed him, and, of course, there was genuine delight:
(photo: Atilla)
The poor guy was wondering why those huge, useless lenses were there! Now he knows, and his quality of life is dramatically improved.
We can all make such a difference. Or annoy the shit out of people with nonstop car-talk. It can go either way.
That’s not an uncommon trick for cars with pop-up lights. The FC RX-7 had small lenses below the headlights but above the turn signals for this same purpose.
My friend has a 50’s pickup truck that he rents out for photo shoots. Its not a bad idea, you get some extra cash and professional photos of your vehicle.
I had that exact Laser. It was the first new car I ever bought. I miss it terribly. And I did know about the hidden headlight flashy trick.
Awesome.
Thanks again for bringing the Pao (and yourself) out, Torch!
I wasn’t sure what to expect out of this either. The setting is a local “Retrobar” which features ’80s/’90s-inspired decor, drinks, etc. It also features a number of arcade machines and free-to-play consoles including NES, SNES and Genesis. They host things like ’80s Movie trivia and karaoke nights as well. TriangleRAD has been hosting retro car meets there on a monthly basis since the spring. The owners reached out to me about this modeling group that wanted to do a retro photoshoot in the bar, and also wanted to work some cars in. So that’s how this whole thing happened.
The owner of the Laser is also the founder of the big local retro gaming club, they also do numerous collaborations with this bar such as tournaments.
Neat cars and concept, but I’m confused by the shoot location. Seams really uninspired.
Triangle Rad has a cool logo. Hope you asked for some decals.
I appreciate you saying that. The club logo was the first graphic design-type project I ever attempted. It’s on a bunch of stuff now.
My Talon had the mod that allowed you to keep the headlights down without having to hold the stalk by repurposing the foglight button. I added translucent blue plastic behind the lower lenses so it would roll around with blue lights but I could hit the fog light to raise the popups to have legal white headlights on the street. The things we thought were cool back in the 90s.
Saturday I saw a Pontiac G8 (doing taxi duty!) and pointed it out to my son. The thing had blue headlight lenses, and I was simply unable to explain why someone would do that to an otherwise un-modded car.
I did it so I could call my car the “Blue Lite Special”. Nobody today would get that reference and honestly it wasn’t that great of a reference back in the day, but it looked cool.
You let them use your Pao for free? That’s nice but my Corolla doesn’t get out of the garage for less than $1,000 a day.
I can recommend registering your car with a car wrangler in your nearest city. I have two 35 year old cars. One a VW T3 Vanagon Westfalia and the other a now rare stock Corolla Alltrac wagon. I registered the Vanagon thinking that it might be rented for Adverts etc as its full vanlife edition and then while I was registering on the site and had some photos of the Corolla on my laptop I thought I’d register it as well as an afterthought.
Turns out ’80s cars are popular now and I’ve rented my $1,500 Corolla Wagon out for $1,000 a day 3 times now for two TVCs (one for Toyota) and an American TV series being filmed here in Melbourne. Australia. which more than pays for its upkeep!
The wranglers are always looking for weird through to not so obscure cars as well for backgrounds etc. Jump to it!
I think the fact that Jason knew about the headlight trick on gen1 DSMs is further proof that he’s in the correct line of work.
Pro-Tip: Always oil your buttocks prior to engaging any glass surface! (͡o‿O͡)
😉
Oh sure, now you tell me! 😛
ヽ(͡◕ ͜ʖ ͡◕)ﾉ
A pride of lions. A murder of crows. A brace of DeLoreans.
A synth of DeLoreans maybe?
There’s one that I see on my commute occasionally. Still as striking as ever but the sound of its nearly 40 year engine is fairly incongruous.
“Brace” is an archaic word meaning two of something (rather than a larger group) or possibly a pair of something, which is not quite the same thing.
For example, it’s often used to describe a pirate or a gunslinger as having “a brace of pistols”. The person in question has two guns (not one or three) and the guns may or may not be identical.
For DeLorean purposes today, brace works. 🙂
Pretty sure it’s a flux of DeLoreans.
A snort of DeLoreans.
Pretty sure a line of DeLoreans would also fit.
a bump of DeLoreans!
Well at least you didn’t have to spend the rest of the day explaining why your car had greasy ass prints all over it.
Laser guy “wow that’s awesome thanks!”
Jason “now let me tell you about these tail lights!”
5 hours later…..
A former colleague of mine used to rent out his Karmann Ghia for movies and TV shoots here in Montreal.
Wasn’t a very regular occurrence, but the people in the biz knew his was the only local one. He pocketed a few grand everytime.
I wish more Lasers, Eclipses and Talons survived unmodified. My sister had a Red Talon TSi AWD with a stick in high school. That was a super fun car. There’s just really nothing like that out there for sale in the new car marketplace anymore.
A buddy of mine in college test drove one and burnt the clutch out on the test drive. Just kinda left it there in front of the dorms for the dealership to come pick up. Never lend out a car like this to college students to test drive. Dealer should have known better. Oh the smell!!!!
“Never lend out a car like this to college students to test drive”
Would the target demographic of high school dropouts working in a tire factory been so much better?
To be fair, my brother and I were handed-down a 93 from our dad that we learned to drive stick on. And even after we’d learned to drive stick properly, that car seemed to want a new clutch every 25k miles or so like clockwork.
I later managed to get 4x that mileage out of the clutch on my Subaru, and to this day I still wonder if I just got even better in the interim at babying the clutch or if it was something specific to those DSM cars.
It was the cars. Their drive train was pretty overstressed. That’s not the only part that routinely failed prematurely. CV joints, transmissions, axles. Also they tended to overheat and warp heads.
Love the way they look though. If you can find an example that hasn’t been hooned, and the owner did the maintenance, they are very nice cars.
I too learned to drive stick on a Laser…
It’s weird how the Eclipses are mostly what’s left, and most of them have been Fast n Furious-ed within an inch of their lives.
My boss in the ’90s had a turbo AWD Eclipse. Sooo much fun to drive, and I still remember how much visibility it provided for a sport coupe.
This is making me wonder about making my cars available to rent for photoshoots someday… Probably the only one that would be worth doing is my T-bird, but that needs restoration first. Still fun to think about.
Do it. Find your local Car Wrangler and register it. Even my 1988 Corolla Alltrac pulls $1,000 a day (Australian) for TVC’s. They call out for all sorts of vehicles not just exotic ones. Sometimes they will post they need a silver 2000’s minivan for an ad, example.
Interesting, I am using my Super Beetle for a fall photoshoot that a friend is running this upcoming weekend.
“…genuine (de)light”
well done, sir. I was paying attention this time: did not drink as I read this. Good thing, too. Thumbs up!
I love those Lasers. Beautiful wheels, and you should post a shot of the interior – the first gen DSM coupes have perhaps one of my all-time favorite “the future is here – functional and a little dystopian” dashboards.
I came because of the laser butt, and learned something about a dsm I didn’t know before. Thanks, Jason